Friday 12 October 2012 05.03 EDT
First published on Friday 12 October 2012 05.03 EDT

Red Bull laid down an ominous marker as they claimed the top two spots in second practice for the Korean Grand Prix. The Milton Keynes-based team were the dominant force at last weekend's Japanese Grand Prix and they look like again being the pacesetters in Yeongam.

Sebastian Vettel, four points behind Fernando Alonso in the championship standings, set a time of 1min 38.832sec to beat his team-mate Mark Webber by only three-hundredths of a second. Third place went to Alonso as Ferrari showed signs that updates to the F2012 will make them a more competitive proposition than in recent races, although he was 0.3sec adrift of the Red Bulls.

Jenson Button was fourth in the first of the McLarens while Michael Schumacher was fifth. Schumacher was later reprimanded by the stewards for impeding the two HRTs, causing embarrassment for the German as HRT have consistently been the slowest team in Formula One since their arrival in the sport in 2010.

Felipe Massa and Nico Rosberg were next, ahead of Lewis Hamilton in eighth. Hamilton, after apologising for his Twitter outburst at Button, had been confident of a strong performance after McLaren fixed a suspension problem that hindered him in Japan. But he found himself nearly nine-tenths off Vettel's ultimate pace and suffered an off-track excursion during the final minutes.

Nico Hulkenberg was ninth in the Force India with the Lotus pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean 10th and 11th. The Enstone outfit have brought a series of upgrades to Yeongam, including a new exhaust system, but they do not appear set to boost Raikkonen's fading championship hopes.

Bruno Senna was 12th for Williams, with Paul di Resta 13th ahead of the two Saubers. The Swiss team secured a podium in Japan with Kamui Kobayashi, but a repeat looks unlikely this weekend as he and his team-mate Sergio Pérez finished 14th and 15th. Pérez's frustrations were not helped when he was forced to abandon his car after it ground to a halt halfway through the session.

Pastor Maldonado was a disappointing 18th for Williams, behind the Toro Rossos of Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo, with the Caterhams, Marussias and HRTs filling out the bottom six places.